Musings and Snippets from a recently retired JP. I served for 31 years, mostly in west London. I was Chairman of my Bench for some years, and a member of the National Bench Chairmen's Forum All cases are based on real ones, but anonymised and composited. All opinions are those of one or more individuals. JPs swear to enforce the law of the land, whether or not they approve of it. Nothing on here constitutes legal advice.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

Reflection

Guidance has just been issued by the senior judiciary which specifically refers to blogging. For reasons that are obvious I shall read the documents carefully before making any comment, then take advice from friends and colleagues. So please be patient, but you will have my views in due course.

"Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Blogging by members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, officer (sic) holders who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general.

The above guidance also applies to blogs which purport to be anonymous. This is because it is impossible for somebody who blogs anonymously to guarantee that his or her identity cannot be discovered.

Judicial office holders who maintain blogs must adhere to this guidance and should remove any existing content which conflicts with it forthwith. Failure to do so could ultimately result in disciplinary action. It is also recommended that all judicial office holders familiarise themselves with the new IT and Information Security Guidance which will be available shortly."

Not sure if the actual guidance has reached you yet, Bystander, or if you're basing this on what you've seen in the comments to your last post, but 'the documents' won't take long to read: what Sub Rosa posted in her comment was not merely an extract. That's the entire text of the guidance.

Look forward to reading your response once you've consulted with friends and colleagues.

The Senior Presiding Judge's request does not allow any latitude for boldness, it would seem.

But I can understand why you say that - this blog is a superb advertisement for the magistracy ; and I would have thought that anything that made the system more transparent and more human (without compromising public perceptions of the judicial process) would have been gratefully seized upon.

The text of this guidance is rather threatening. "Must remove and existing content which conflicts with it (i.e. the guidance) forthwith."

The blogger may not identify himself as a member of the judiciary. Thus, the name Magistrates' Blog - Musings and Snippets from an English magistrates - is likely to fall foul of this "guidance" straight away.

The there is the threat of "disciplinary action" whatever form that might take.

How much better it would be to encourage sensible and responsible comment about the courts and the law. These days, one really fears for free speech etc. in this country.

No change of tack but, if the guidance stands (hope not) then clearly the title of this blog is immediately in breach. Responsible and critical comment about the law ought to be permissible even from members of the judiciary no matter how low or high in the hierarchy. I fail to see why such comment would bring the judiciary into disrepute etc.

How far-reaching is this guidance - when we eventually get it? Does this mean the end of our participation in forums, such as on the Magistrates' Association's own website? And with what authority has it been issued?

I notice that today's Times questions the authority of Lord Justice Goldring to bar magistrates from standing for police commissioners' posts or from assisting in elections, accusing him of "assuming the role of legislator and usurping the role of Parliament, which had not banned magistrates from becoming commissioners or sitting on oversight panels."

(Formerly Penguin)...Or vice versa. My first waking thought this morning (oddly) was that, if I can't say I'm a magistrate in a blog, then I can't tell the average bloke in a pub. In essence, all the MIC work we've done over the years has just been wiped out by the SPJ.

And the Law Commission has suggested repealing the law that seeks to prevent "The Scandalisation of Judges" because the commission seeks great transparency within the Judical System. Excellent timing from the SPJ !

We only have Bystander's word for it that he/she is a magistrate. On this blog anyone can claim to be anything - how would you know. Clearly if I sign my posts using my full name, add the suffix "JP" and claim to be a member of a specific bench, or have a name sufficiently unusual, then identity isn't a problem and my link to or membership of the judiciary can be checked and challenged.

More to the point, if I write about interpreter debacles, police commissioners, the treatment in our courts of those with mental health issues do I necessarily bring the judiciary (or even the Ministry of Justice, HMCTS or anyone else) into disrepute?

What has the SPJ or HMCTS got to hide? As the paragons of efficiency, open government and all things good and wholesome, what could they possibly not want disclosed?

Hizzoner is on very thin ice and I am sure he knows it. I have been reading your blog almost from the beginning and have never spotted anything inappropriate. Stick with it BS. I am sure you are made of the right stuff!

4) Temporarily close the site and discuss this with the SPJ. He was flexible with regard to his other recent pronouncement and it would be useful to discuss some modifications to the instructions. However first you must obey the existing one.

Fred's suggestion is very sensible, but the future of The Magistrate's Blog is not the only issue, even if it is undoubtedly the most high profile. The identity of its author is already in the public domain, so anyone who wanted to try and establish a link between their case and one "reported" on the blog would not have a great deal of difficulty in principle, though BS is undoubtedly very careful about what he writes (the same is not necessarily true of all those who comment - and if he is to become responsible for checking every single past comment and redacting any that could possibly infringe the SPJ's startling diktat, the whole nature of the blog, and indeed the scale of his task would be fundamentally changed, and not necessarily for the better). But any discussion with the Senior Presider would also need to establish what his rationale and indeed justification for this ill-thought through and thoroughly unworkable edict was, why he didn't engage in any form of prior dialogue or discussion, and on what basis he has sought to restrict so startlingly any public expression of opinion by judicial office holders on the Internet, but to tolerate and even apparently encourage discussion of judicial issues by colleagues in other media. His knee-jerk and exceedingly clumsy reaction to the prospect (hardly a surprise, and something the MA apparently raised in tempore non suspecto) of JPs standing for election as Police & Crime Commissioners made him look inept; this further example of an ill-considered "policy" position could well be seen to call his judgment into question.

Plus many associated with aviation will also have been able to put 2 and 2 together and work it out.

True anonymity is close to an impossibility on line, as I found out to my cost when an unscrupulous AAIB employee decided to unmask my (employer required) pseudonym on another on line forum where he was a contributor a few years ago.

BS may recall that event, which included very useful input from a well-known aviation lawyer (now a judge) who roundly condemned the said official.

"Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Blogging by members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, officer (sic) holders who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general."

For what it's worth, I've been reading this blog for over five years and I've never once read one single word of yours that so much as bends that guidance.

The problem is with 'identifying themselves as members of the judiciary'. At first this appears to mean BS cannot say he is a magistrate anymore. But could it also be interpreted as no more than 'you must not say exactly who you are (e.g. by giving your real name), if you are a member of the judiciary'.

The guidance seemingly imposes a two-stage test: the first being not to identify yourself as a member of the judiciary; and the second being not to make comments that would adversely affect people's confidence in them or the system.

Whilst the second stage is arguably open to every reader's interpretation and upon which everyone will have their own views, the first stage is crystal clear and as BS's profile identifies himself as a magistrate, let alone the many blogs about what BS did in court that day, the blog and many of the posts clearly DO fall foul of the new guidance and that is beyond doubt.

Whether the new guidance is proportionate to address the perceived mischief caused by such blogs is a separate matter and another one on which we'll all have our own views...

Personally BS, I would ignore the 'advice.' I am sure you won't do that and so the question is, what is more important to you? The perceived social standing and importance that being a JP gives to you in your real world or the adulation of like minded souls on this blog?

Hi, Biker, yes, I can see that I've been very 'obliging' in my response. But watching the debate on here and elsewhere I'm intrigued to see what others - particularly Bystander - do.

My blog has, in any case, never been *about* being a magistrate, as anyone who's bothered to look will see. It merely *mentions* it on a few occasions. And I'm in a very different position to others as I do blog, tweet etc in my own name.

but not unusual. During the time when the role of magistrates has been decimated either by transfer to local councils (now recognised even by some former ministers as a mistake) or transfer of responsibilities for management of the courts to civil servants or transfer of judicial work to paid judges, what has exercised the MA and many members most? Expenses !

Trivialising the work done by the MA on the issues of real import does nobody any good, and not only misrepresents the truth about the activities of the Association, and especially of its officers (of which I am not one, I should make clear) and of its standing committees, which spend their time on matters of real substance. That individual magistrates, not involved with "policy making" have been understandably exasperated by the contradictions, inconsistencies and "messages" sent out by the successive edicts on capping mileages whilst pleading with magistrates to sit in courts 60 miles away to avoid trials going down, to give but one example, is not a sign of disinterest in the bigger picture, but simply a natural reaction to mismanagement and its fallout on court staff and JPs alike. I can certainly confirm that all the other issues you mention have occupied the attention of the Association in recent times, and continue indeed to do so.

Does anyone know if a Magistrate's dog would be constrained by this guidance also ? Would the disciplinary action involve getting slapped across the nose with a newspaper and the withdrawal of sofa privileges ?

It would be very sad if your blog had to come to an end. I feel that it enhances the reputation of the bench and the judiciary as a whole. It shows the difficulties they operate under and the enormous amount of thought and consideration that they apply to their judicial tasks. It very carefully anonymises the parties involved and steers clear of controversial comment on sensitive issues. It is the sort of blog a magistrate ought to write.

There ought to be more of this sort of thing. Not less. Or indeed none. What is the SPJ thinking?

"We select judges for being thoughtful, careful people and it follows that those who dip a toe in the waters of blogging are likely to do so with appropriate caution and forethought (and in my experience they do so). We pay them to think before they open their mouths. So why not trust their judgment?"A quote from the blog "Pink Tape" on this subject. In which I would include magistrates and to which I can only respond, "Precisely."

Does anyone know an email address for Lord Justice Goldring, the Senior Presiding Judge, so that interested readers can contact him and explain the value that they get from this (and other similar) blogs? I've been reading this blog on-and-off for years and it has very much improved my opinion of lay magistrates, both when I was a police officer and now that I research crime and policing issues.

Nothing further since last summer, and you will note that we have changed to a team approach. The wigs are worried that I may cast doubt upon the impartiality of the bench. If anyone can find anything to that effect in the 2000 plus posts so far, good luck to them, but I can't be bothered to look. And if I were kicked out, that wouldn't stop the blog, of course.The next thing to look at is whether we will fall under the new press regulation umbrella. If we do, and it all goes bad, it's an open secret that my modest house and modest hatchback won't cover a million pound costs order.

What The Papers Said

40 Bloggers That Really Count (Times)There are 30,000 or so unpaid magistrates across England and Wales. For five years, one of them has anonymously detailed the cut and thrust of the job, providing a grimly funny insight into Britain’s sinful underbelly with the same feel and tone as a Hogarth or Dickens.